Houthi missile from Yemen hits Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh

Faisal Edroos Reporting for Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/yemen-houthi-fire-missile-saudi-arabia-riyadh-171104180946302.html

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Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for an explosion in Riyadh, saying they fired a long-range ballistic missile that travelled more than 500km over the border with Saudi Arabia.

A spokesman for the rebels told Al Jazeera they launched a Burkan 2-H missile towards Riyadh late on Saturday, a Scud-type missile with a range of more than 800km.

“The capital cities of countries that continually shell us, targeting innocent civilians, will not be spared from our missiles,” the spokesman said.

Al Masirah, a TV network run by the Houthi rebels, also claimed responsibility for the attack on their social media account.

According to videos published on social media, smoke could be seen rising from near Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.

Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV channel quoted Saudi air defence forces as saying they intercepted the missile northeast of Riyadh.

Al Ekhbariya, the Saudi state news channel , reported that the missile that struck the airport was “of limited size” and no damage was caused.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the reports.

In an interview to Al Jazeera earlier this month, Mohammed Abdul Salam, a spokesman for the Houthi rebels, threatened to to escalate operations on the Yemen-Saudi border and target deep inside the kingdom.

“The Saudis started the war. Our response will continue and increase, whether it’s targeting deep inside Saudi Arabia, targeting military positions where Saudi jets fly from or military bases inside Yemeni territory,” Abdul Salam said.

“Abu Dhabi and others that target Yemen, are as far as we’re concerned, are a fair military target. Any country that targets Yemen will be struck by our missiles.”

The war in Yemen, the Arab region’s poorest country, started in 2014 after Houthi rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa and began pushing south towards the country’s third-biggest city, Aden.

Concerned by the rise of the Houthi rebels, believed to be backed by regional rival Iran, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Sunni Arab states launched an intervention in 2015 in the form of a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least 40,000 wounded, mostly from Saudi-led air strikes.